Birthday Weekend Getaway/BYU-Idaho

Ryan surprised me for my birthday and took me on a getaway weekend to celebrate it. We dropped the kids off with my parents and went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Then he booked a really cool hotel room that used to be a bank in McCamon Idaho and then surprised me the next morning with an appointment to have a massage! It was wonderful. Afterwards we took off to Idaho Falls and had lunch at Olive Garden. Then we headed even farther north to Rexburg to visit where we met and fell in love....BYU-Idaho. We toured the campus and saw all the new buildings and visited old ones. It is always a special feeling when on that amazing campus. We went to my old apartment building...Normandy and also to Porter Park where we first got engaged. Thanks babe for a great weekend away!! Love you!

First Christmas in our new house!

We moved into our house on the night of December 22nd, just 3 days before Christmas! Crazy. Our builder said we would be in before Christmas...boy was he cutting it close! It was an awesome Christmas present, to be in our new home. Of course not everything was done when we moved in. They had to come finish up the built-ins around the fire place and some cabinets in the kitchen and a few things here and there, but we felt so blessed to be able to call this our home.

 On the 24th we had Sean, Dad, Trudy, and Wendy and Jerry come and stay with us. So it was a bit crazy to say the least. Boxes still everywhere and things to be done but we made the best of it. It was a great Christmas. I get sad thinking about how fast the time goes by. I really feel like I take time to savor every moment with my family when we are together but it still goes by too fast! We had a great Christmas and were once again spoiled by Santa. ;)

Cleveland Ohio

Dan and I went to Cleveland on a vacation!  Yay Cleveland! Cleveland... ugh... Ok, so it wasn't a vacation.  It was a CME for work to get us ready for our recertification test so we could continue to practice medicine as PAs. Pretty important.  

We were in class from 7 am to 7 pm with a 1/2 hour lunch.  Oh, and we had a two-hour test every night.  It was rough to say the least.  Our only joy came from playing Halo after our test was over.  

On the evening of the 3rd day (Sunday), we had a chance to break away and we went to Kirkland, where many of the most important event of the restoration of the Gospel took place.  We toured the original site of the Church, including the Kirkland temple. 

I had to push Dan around in a wheel chair after a while because he was so weak.

It was a weekend of extremes: extreme boredom at the CME and extreme spiritual building in Kirkland.

Shrine Circus Comes to Town

We got free tickets to the Circus this summer and had such a great time! It was a little warm but other than that it was perfect! This might be something we have to do every year. We loved the men dancers. They were seriously amazing. I couldn't get enough of watching them. Thanks for the tickets Sister Gifford!! We love you!